50 Years Ago

Mr Anthony Wedgwood Benn, Minister of Technology, seems hopeful that Britain’s application to join the Common Market may help to limit the flow of qualified manpower to the United States. Speaking at a symposium … on “Aspects of the Brain Drain”, he said that the continent would become a magnet at least as powerful as the United States or the Soviet Union. Joint projects such as ELDO and Concorde were all very well, he suggested, but it was not only by big science that Europe could be made a good place to work in. The universities and industry, and people’s attitudes towards them, were the really critical things … Mr Benn outlined the possible approaches to the problem. No forms of restriction appealed to him, either of the free motion of people or the freedom of other people to advertise for emigrants.

From Nature 20 May 1967

100 Years Ago

Pure “blood charcoal” is a reagent of considerable importance to the physiological chemist. It is not only required from the decolorisation of liquids, but also for selective adsorption in an important series of quantitative estimations of animal fluids. My Stock of Merck's blood charcoal is nearly exhausted, and I cannot obtain a supply of any homemade article that is suitable. I should be most grateful if any of your readers could give me any information as to the method of preparation of blood charcoal, or the name of a firm that would be willing to manufacture and supply the article. Material as good as Merck's would command a ready sale at home as well as in America, where they have had to abandon rapid and accurate methods of analysis owing to the lack of the necessary charcoal.

From Nature 17 May 1917